Many therapeutic medical treatments include the administration of therapeutic oxygen or other breathing gases to patients. Typically, a nasal cannula is used to deliver such gases. The cannula typically includes a cannula tip that is inserted at least partially into the patient's nose and discharges breathing gases within the patient's nasal passages. When a patient requires prolonged oxygen administration, the cannula is worn during both awake and sleeping hours. During such prolonged use, conventional cannula tips can become a source of irritation for the patient. Prolonged oxygen flow, especially constant flow, through such cannula tips, and even the cannula tips themselves, may cause trauma to the patient's nasal passages. For example, sores, deterioration, and the like may be prompted by constant oxygen flow and/or cannula tips in a patient's nasal passageway. Also, constant oxygen flow wastes oxygen when the patient exhales.
One therapeutic breathing treatment treats sleep apnea, in which a patient tends to stop breathing from time to time while sleeping, thus causing the patient to wake repeatedly during sleeping hours. The patient may not remember awakening during the night, but typically suffers from inefficient and ineffective sleep. A treatment for sleep apnea includes supplying a continuous flow of breathing air to the patient's airway in order to keep the airway open. Although this treatment typically keeps the airway open, and helps the patient to keep breathing, the constant flow of breathing gases can cause irritation to the nasal passageways. Another sleep apnea treatment, referred to as “bi-level” treatment, supplies a continuous flow of air to the patient's airway, but supplies a lesser volume of air during the patient's exhalation phase. Although the flow of air is reduced for some of the time, the flow is still continuous, thus prompting irritation of the nasal passageway by the treatment device. Also, during exhalation, a patient still must overcome the force of air being blown into the airway.